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понедельник, 1 сентября 2014 г.

Peacekeepers would be only in case of final and comprehensive peace settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

By Melania Barseghyan

Since
the ceasefire of 1994, both domestically and at the international levels,
information is regularly are released that pretty soon peacekeeping troops
would be deployed along the Karabakh-Azerbaijani borderline. Fortunately, this
information so far remains at the level of rumors. Once again, these rumors
began in the end of July during the tension along the borderline. After the
tripartite Sochi meeting of presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, the
rumors were focused on the “Russian peacekeepers”. But as many experts, war
veterans, politicians, so as Armenia’s and NKR Defense Ministers were of one
and the same opinion that we do not need peacekeepers.

At
the press conference on August 6, Armenia’s Defense Minister, Seyran Ohanyan,
said, “Among all conflict zones in the world, Karabakh is the only conflict
zone where relative peace is maintained without the third-party force, through
a balance of forces, and thanks to our advantage of fighting spirit and quality
preparedness. We estimate the situation as a ‘no war, no peace’ state, because
the ceasefire terms are constantly violated by the rival. Thanks to our officer
preparedness, we preserve the situation. When we talk about the balance of
forces, one can immediately conclude what quantitative and qualitative
preparedness means. In that sense, we can solve the problems facing us
independently, and currently, there is no need for deployment of peacekeeping
forces. “

In
his turn, at a press conference on August 19, in Stepanakert, NKR Defense
Minister, Movses Hakobyan had said, “For us, the best peacekeeper is the troop
of Defense Army, we do not feel the need for any other peacekeepers.”

Meanwhile,
on August 10, at the interview to “ArmNews”, to the question of the journalist
about the Russian peacekeepers, President of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh
Sargsyan, had responded as follows, “It is the first time I have hear about
only the Russian peacekeepers, and, in general, the Madrid principles imply the
deployment of peacekeepers along the whole length of the contact line, i.e.
between the conflicting sides. But it is not the subject of these negotiations,
because the mere principle itself has to be discussed, namely whether there
will be peacekeepers or not. The document of Kazan envisages this provision.
The composition of the peacekeeping forces, their powers will be specified in
the Final Agreement that should follow the signing of the mentioned
instrument.”

To
the question of “Aravot” how to understand this, and whether this mean that the
deployment of peacekeepers likely, political scientist Armen Minasyan replied,
“Serzh Sargsyan’s clarification is not in any conflict with the stance
expressed by the defense ministers of Armenia and Artsakh. As far as one can
judge, both Seyran Ohanyan and Movses Hakobyan, had made a reference to the
issue of peacekeepers in the context of recent escalation in the Contact line.
Their stances evidently showed that the Armenian side considers its own armed
forces the best guarantee for preservation of peace and security of the Artsakh
people. This, naturally, is reasonable and perceivable, if we consider what
failures various peacekeeping missions had in different hotbeds around the
world.

With
regard to the clarification by the president, then nothing new has been said.
In their numerous statements, the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair
countries (Aquila, Muskoka, Deauville, Los Cabos, etc.) have wiretapped some
clauses of proposals put on the negotiation table, from which it becomes clear
that one of the elements of comprehensive solution to the conflict is the
implementation of the peacekeeping actions. The same statements repeatedly
noted that the proposed principles and elements are a whole, therefore, one can
conclude that the peacekeeping actions implies only to the comprehensive
settlement, about which we can speak only in case of elaboration of the
so-called “Big Peace Agreement”, the discussion of which is planned after the
basic principles agreed upon. Since the parties have not reached an agreement on
the principles of settlement, currently speaking about the big agreements and
the settlement is too early now. In other words, it is too early to talk about
the inevitability for deployment of peacekeepers.”

Facts from History

CEDAW

UNSCR 1325

Strategy for engagement and joint actions on confidence building and P2P diplomacy that involve women. Final Report

YOUTH PEACE PLAN OF GEORGIA

This publication is produced within the framework of the project - ‘‘Support Democratic Participation of Young Women in Building Peace and Stability in Georgia’’ implemented in Georgia by International Network for Civil Development - INCD in partnership with Young Women Experts’ Network for Peace and Security (YWEPS) and with the financial support of the Embassy of Canada through Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI).